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There are lots of ways to learn SQL. I love books, and will never argue that you shouldn't buy a book. With that said, I think that there is a better option for the needs that you've demonstrated in your posts/questions.

A "big ticket" answer that I see as the best "bang for the buck" is PluralSight. The basic version is $299/year and the Plus version is $499/year. This investment gets you well over 1000 hours of the best training I've ever seen from an online provider, and access to one of the most talented and supportive online IT communities in the world. The courses offered cover everything from SQL Server, to how to do presentations, to Linux, and beyond. The free trial is 30 days worth, and it will leave you reeling if you get even a small fraction of the value that PluralSight offers!

Joe Celko is an old friend of mine. We argue like cats and dogs and sometimes have security eyeing us nervously, then we go have a beer! Very few people have ever been able to argue him to a stand-still, and I'm the only person I've ever heard of that has gotten Joe to change his mind. His academic credentials are impeccable. He's a master, with an amazing history and almost endless experience. He actually sat on the ANSI committee that wrote the standard for what SQL ought to do, and he's very good at explaining what SQL should do. As you've probably guessed, I'm somewhat biased in favor of Joe in spite of his shortcomings (which I acknowledge and am willing to accept).

Thinking in Sets is definitely a great book, but I'm not sure that I'd describe it as a "great start" unless you've got a PHD! It really pushes RA (Relational Algebra) pretty hard, and will probably be a daunting task for anyone with less than 1000 working hours with a relational database.

Please take a second look at PluralSight. They really are one of the best investments in technology education that I have seen, I can't recommend them highly enough. The free trial makes them almost a "no brainer" for anyone in the technology field.

-PatP

In theory, theory and practice are identical. In practice, theory and practice are unrelated.

The University I attended / graduated from gives me free access to Lynda.com and there are some free SQL training out there. I took a couple of VBA courses from Curtis Frye on there which were helpful I see there is a SSRS and SSIS course out there as well.

Do you recommend any specific courses to get moving in the right direction? I'm looking to get better at writing queries and moving onto creating objects such as triggers. We have a need to build those on tables to show updates and I really want to learn how to do those.

It's an easy read and not too daunting technically. Perfectly poised for someone at the beginning of their SQL journey.

Whilst my library at home has a good selection of other SQL books (including a couple by Celko), this is always the one I loan to people to get them started, and the feedback from them has always been good*

Learn how to aggregate data better
Learn how to create sets of data and then better use them to get my intended results (such as temp tables)
Data Warehousing in general, I came from a transaction environment now I am working in a data warehouse. All the dimensions running into the facts table is a lot different than the transactional design.
Learning intermediate to advance program techniques.

I feel like others are superior and I just want to fight through that and get better. I have a lab at home with a local copy of SQL server 2012 and I work on 2008 at work. I have the means and the job to get better I just want to get better.

I think the beginner book is cool I have a few of them already I just want to start to see improvement more so. Don't get me wrong I am picking up little things like casting in the select and trying different methods.